In 1895, at age six, two important events happened in the life of young
Adolf Hitler. First, the unrestrained, carefree days he had enjoyed up
to now came to an end as he entered primary school. Secondly, his father
retired on a pension from the Austrian civil service.

This meant a double dose of supervision, discipline and regimentation under
the watchful eyes of teachers at school and his strict father at home. His
father, now 58, had spent most of his life working his way up through the
civil service ranks. He was used to giving orders and having them obeyed and
also expected this from his children. The Hitler family lived on a small farm
outside of Linz, Austria. The children had farm chores to perform along with
their school
work.

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Hitler's mother was now preoccupied with caring for her new son, Edmund. In
1896, she gave birth to a girl, Paula. The Hitler household now consisted
of Adolf, little brother Edmund, little sister Paula, older half-brother Alois
Jr., older half-sister Angela and two parents who were home all the time.
It was a crowded, noisy little farm house that seems to have gotten on the
nerves on Hitler's father who found retirement after 40 years of work to be
difficult.

The oldest boy, Alois Jr., 13, bore the brunt of his father's discontent,
including harsh words and occasional beatings. A year later, at age 14,
young Alois had enough of this treatment and ran away from home, never
to see his father again. This put young Adolf, age 7, next in line for
the same treatment.

Also at this time, the family moved off the farm to the town of Lambach,
Austria, halfway between Linz and Salzburg. This was the first of several
moves the family would make during the restless retirement of Hitler's father.

For young Adolf, the move to Lambach meant an end to farm chores and
more time to play. There was an old Catholic Benedictine monastery in the
town. The ancient monastery was decorated with carved stones and woodwork
that included several swastikas. Adolf attended school there and saw them
every day. They had been put there in the 1800s by the ruling Abbot as
a pun or play on words. His name essentially sounded like the German word
for swastika, Hakenkreuz.

Young Hitler did well in the monastery school and also took part in
the boys' choir. He was said to have had a fine singing voice. Years later
Hitler would say the solemn pageantry of the high mass and other Catholic
ceremonies was quite intoxicating and left a very deep impression.

As a young boy he idolized the priests and for two years seriously considered
becoming a priest himself. He especially admired the Abbot in charge, who
ruled his black-robed monks with supreme authority. At home Hitler sometimes
played priest and even included long sermons.

At age nine, he got into schoolboy mischief. He was caught smoking a
cigarette by one of the priests, but was forgiven and not punished.

His favorite game to play outside was cowboys and Indians. Tales of
the American West were very popular among boys in Austria and Germany.
Books by James Fenimore Cooper and especially German writer Karl May were
eagerly read and re-enacted.

May, who had never been to America, invented a hero named Old Shatterhand,
a white man who always won his battles with Native Americans, defeating
his enemies through sheer will power and bravery. Young Hitler read and
re-read every one of May's books about Old Shatterhand, totaling more than
70 novels. He continued to read them even as Führer. During the German
attack on Soviet Russia, he sometimes referred to the Russians as Redskins
and ordered his officers to carry May's books about fighting Indians.

In describing his boyhood, Hitler later said of himself that he was
an argumentative little ring leader who liked to stay outside and hang
around with 'husky' boys. His half-brother Alois later described him as
quick to anger and spoiled by his indulgent mother.

In 1898, the Hitler family moved once again, to the village of Leonding,
close to Linz. They settled into a small house with a garden located next to a
cemetery. This meant another change of schools for Adolf.

He found school easy and got good grades with little effort. He also
discovered he had considerable talent for drawing, especially sketching
buildings. He had the ability to look at a building, memorize the architectural
details, and accurately reproduce it on paper, entirely from memory.

Portrait of Adolf Hitler as an infant. Below Hitler's mother Klara.

Below: A dour-looking 12-year-old Adolf as seen in his Linz classroom photo from 1901.

Below: Alois Hitler, his stern-minded father.

One day, young Hitler went rummaging through his father's book collection
and came across several of a military nature, including a picture book
on the War of 1870-71 between the Germans and the French. By Hitler's
own account, this book became an obsession. He read it over and over, becoming
convinced it had been a glorious event.

"It was not long before the great historic struggle had become
my greatest spiritual experience. From then on, I became more and more
enthusiastic about everything that was in any was connected with war or,
for that matter, with soldiering," Hitler stated in his book Mein
Kampf.

Cowboys
and Indians gave way to battle re-enactments, especially after the Boer
War broke out in Africa. Hitler, now eleven years old, took the side of
the Boers against the English and never tired of playing war. Sometimes,
he even wore out the boys he was playing with and then simply went and
found other boys to continue.

But now at home, tragedy struck. Adolf's little brother Edmund, age
6, died of measles. Adolf, the boy who loved warplay and its 'pretend'
death now had to confront genuine death for the first time. It seems to
have shaken him badly.

To make matters worse, the little boy was buried in the cemetery next
to their house. From his bedroom window, Adolf could see the cemetery.

Years later, neighbors recalled that young Adolf was sometimes seen
at night sitting on the wall of the cemetery gazing up at the stars.

And there were now more problems for Adolf. His grade school years were
coming to an end and he had to choose which type of secondary school to
attend, classical or technical. By now, young Hitler had dreams of one
day becoming an artist. He wanted to go to the classical school. But his
father wanted him to follow in his footsteps and become a civil servant
and sent him to the technical high school in the city of Linz, in September 1900.

Hitler, the country boy, was lost in the city and its big school. City
kids also looked down on country kids who went to the school. He was very
lonely and extremely unhappy. He did quite poorly his first year, getting
kept back.

He would later claim he wanted to show his father he was unsuited for
technical education with its emphasis on mathematics and science and thus
should have been allowed to become an artist.

"I
thought that once my father saw what little progress I was making at the
[technical school] he would let me devote myself to the happiness I dreamed
of," Hitler explained in Mein Kampf.

There were frequent arguments at home between young Hitler and his father
over his career choice. To the traditional-minded, authoritarian father,
the idea of his son becoming an artist seemed utterly ridiculous.

But in the grand scheme of things, as young Adolf saw it, the idea of
a career spent sitting in an office all day long doing the boring paperwork of a civil servant was utterly horrible. The dream of becoming an
artist seemed to be the answer to all his present day problems.

But his stubborn father refused to listen. And so a bitter struggle
began between father and son.

Hitler began his second year at the high school as the oldest boy in
his class since he had been kept back. This gave him the advantage over
the other boys. Once again he became a little ring leader and even led the
boys in afterschool games of cowboys and Indians, becoming Old Shatterhand.
He managed to get better grades in his second year, but still failed mathematics.

Another interest of great importance surfaced at this time, German nationalism.

The area of Austria where Hitler grew up is close to the German border.
Many Austrians along the border considered themselves to be German-Austrians.
Although they were subjects of the Austrian Hapsburg Monarchy and its multicultural
empire, they expressed loyalty to the German Imperial House of Hohenzollern
and its Kaiser.

In defiance of the Austrian Monarchy, Adolf Hitler and his young friends
liked to use the German greeting, "Heil," and sing the German
anthem "Deutschland Über Alles," instead of the Austrian Imperial
anthem.

Hitler's father had worked as an Austrian Imperial customs agent and
continually expressed loyalty to the Hapsburg Monarchy, perhaps unknowingly
encouraging his rebellious young son to give his loyalty to the German
Kaiser.

There was also a history teacher at school, Dr. Leopold Pötsch,
who touched Hitler's imagination with exciting tales of the glory of German
figures such as Bismarck and Frederick The Great. For young Hitler, German
nationalism quickly became an obsession.

Adding to all this, was another new interest, the operas of German composer
Richard Wagner. Hitler saw his first opera at age twelve and was immediately
captivated by its Germanic music, pagan myths, tales of ancient Kings and
Knights and their glorious struggles against hated enemies.

But now, for young Hitler, the struggle with his father was about to
come to a sudden end. In January 1903, Hitler's father died suddenly of
a lung hemorrhage, leaving his 13-year-old son as head of the Hitler
household.